Some fear a soaking from fee

Stormwater utility

Posted: Wednesday, December 15, 2004

By Allison Floydallison.floyd@onlineathens.com

As assistant treasurer of Tuckston United Methodist Church, Phil Lomax knew Athens-Clarke County's new stormwater utility would affect his church. After all, he shares a Sunday school class with a county commissioner and heard months ago that the utility would charge non-profits like churches and schools.

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He just didn't expect a bill for $2,200 a year.

"I knew it was going to be a good bit, but that's high," Lomax said when he learned this week that his church likely will face a $179.95-a-month bill.

Tuckston has stood on its Lexington Road site, in one form or another, for more than 100 years, and, like many older developments, has no infrastructure to slow or clean the stormwater that rushes from its roofs and parking lots.

With the sticker shock of the impending bill, Lomax quickly became ready this week to talk to county engineers about how to add some of those detention ponds and possibly lower the monthly charge.

As Athens-Clarke County commissioners enacted a new stormwater utility fee last Tuesday, citizens continued to ask questions that have no answers: Will the University of Georgia pay? Will the Clarke County School District pay? Will churches pay?

And, individuals continued to ask: What's it going to cost me?

The utility will collect monthly fees from every property owner in the county in order to pay about $3 million a year to build storm drains, enforce regulations and educate the public about flooding and water pollution. Another $2.6 million a year in sales tax revenue will pay for strictly structural improvements.

The Georgia Supreme Court upheld a Columbia County stormwater utility earlier this year, ruling that the fee is not a tax. Officials in Athens-Clarke and other local governments across the state believe that means they can charge the fee to non-profit churches and government institutions, just as they do bills for water and sewer service.

Most property owners will pay about $3.50 a month, a round number that few turned out to complain about.

But many church and institutional leaders, like Lomax, didn't have any idea what the fee might be.

Even now, with the utility slated to begin collecting bills in July, no one knows for sure whether UGA will pay, and if it does pay, how much.

And, since the utility must collect a certain amount of money from a limited number of customers, if UGA or the Clarke County School District doesn't pay, homeowners and businesses will pay more. At the same time, homeowners not only will pay $3.50 a month for their own property, but also will pay their share of the charge to their church through tithes, to stores through increased prices and to schools through school system property taxes.

Under the current fee structure, UGA's annual share is $231,000 - before any rebates or credits, discounts that the utility guarantees for businesses, schools and churches that handle some or all of their own stormwater runoff.

The school district gets a $76,000 annual bill, without considering the rebates.

The intervening months - between the commission vote last week and the first utility payments in July - are meant to give property owners the chance to review their charges and apply for those credits.

The magnitude of those credits may make all the difference to the largest payer - UGA.

The day before county commissioners enacted the utility, Hank Huckaby, UGA's senior vice president for finance and administration, sent a letter to County Manager Alan Reddish to clarify the university's position on the utility.

The carefully worded letter says that the university supports the clean-water initiative, but it stops short of saying that the institution will pay.

UGA has constructed its own stormwater infrastructure, Huckaby pointed out.

"We also recognize that as a citizen of Athens-Clarke County we have a responsibility to be full participants in community improvement issues, especially those that impact the environment," Huckaby wrote. "We want to 'do our part' in solving the community's stormwater issues."

UGA pays a $1,365-a-month stormwater utility fee to the city of Griffin for a university-owned ag research center there, according to Jason Peek, the Athens-Clarke County engineer who heads up the local stormwater management program.

But, state law allows UGA to establish its own stormwater management program and attempt to exempt the main campus from the local government's utility.

"Our intention is to (pay the utility charge) - to pay a fair fee," Huckaby said this week.

University architects and engineers are calculating the fee, before sit-down talks between government and university officials sometime next year, Huckaby said.

While city hall and the university negotiate the largest fee of the new stormwater utility, smaller payers - like Tuckston United Methodist - can request an estimate of their fees. By e-mailing info@accstormwater.com with the owner's name, address and parcel number, if available, churches and business owners can request their monthly fee, before credits.

It's a little late for Lomax and Tuckston, where church leaders already have budgeted for 2005.

The $179.95-a-month bill seems like a lot to squeeze into the existing budget, Lomax said.

But the bill may be higher. The church is in the midst of an expansion that would add more parking - and more to the monthly bill.